The reason I am dogmatic about the Bible

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Active Member

The reason I am dogmatic about the Bible, is because I can’t trust my own heart.

Jeremiah 17:9,10
V.9 The heart [is] deceitful above all [things], and desperately wicked: who can know it?
V.10 I the LORD search the heart, try the reins, even to give every man according to his ways, [and] according to the fruit of his doings.”

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Actually “none of us”, can trust our own understanding, therefore we can only trust God’s preserved Word.
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Some will go to the original Heb., and try to find a loophole in this passage, but it says what it means and means what it says.

We are totally at God’s mercy, when it comes to truly understanding anything.

We can’t even trust, our opinion of the Bible, because that opinion is filtered through our deceived hearts.

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Active Member

I appreciate your thoughts. It is encouraging to keep in mind that once we are saved, the Holy Spirit teaches us through God's word and opens our understanding.

Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, so that we may know the things freely given to us by God, which things we also speak, not in words taught by human wisdom, but in those taught by the Spirit, combining spiritual thoughts with spiritual words...For WHO HAS KNOWN THE MIND OF THE LORD, THAT HE WILL INSTRUCT HIM? But we have the mind of Christ.1 Cor 2.12, 13, 16

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Well-Known Member

The heart of the sinful man is is deceitful. I'm not adding a word there....I'm just saying I think that is the context.

Don't you agree that we have a new heart once converted? Can we not trust the Holy Spirit as much as we trust the Bible, as long as they don't contradict?

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The new heart allows us to be sensatve to the Holy Ghost and understand His Word. The Holy Ghost speaks to us through His word. The standard as to what the Holy Ghost is doing is still the living Word of God.

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Well-Known Member

Supporter

“none of us”, can trust our own understanding, therefore we can only trust God’s preserved Word.

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Definition:Dogmatic : characterized by or given to the expression of opinions very strongly or positively as if they were facts Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary (11th ed) 2003.

You can be dogmatic about an opinion but you can’t be dogmatic about an object.

How do you you’re not merely trusting in your own understanding of God’s preserved word?

This is what the LORD says:
“Cursed are those who put their trust in mere humans,
who rely on human strength
and turn their hearts away from the LORD.
They are like stunted shrubs in the desert,
with no hope for the future.
They will live in the barren wilderness,
in an uninhabited salty land.
“But blessed are those who trust in the LORD
and have made the LORD their hope and confidence.Jeremiah 17:5-7 NLT

Study the Scriptures... develop opinions... test them...
Your hope and confidence are to be placed upon God...
and not on your opinions however strong or dogmatic they might be.

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Banned

Definition:Dogmatic : characterized by or given to the expression of opinions very strongly or positively as if they were facts Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary (11th ed) 2003.

You can be dogmatic about an opinion but you can’t be dogmatic about an object.

How do you you’re not merely trusting in your own understanding of God’s preserved word?

This is what the LORD says:
“Cursed are those who put their trust in mere humans,
who rely on human strength
and turn their hearts away from the LORD.
They are like stunted shrubs in the desert,
with no hope for the future.
They will live in the barren wilderness,
in an uninhabited salty land.
“But blessed are those who trust in the LORD
and have made the LORD their hope and confidence.Jeremiah 17:5-7 NLT

Study the Scriptures... develop opinions... test them...
Your hope and confidence are to be placed upon God...
and not on your opinions however strong or dogmatic they might be.

Rob

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Your approach to biblical doctrine leaves too much room for making the scriptures say what you want them to say. If I base my faith on "my opinion" then by human nature I will be biased towards my own desires.

I agree with stilllearning, we need to just accept the Bible for what is says, and stop trying to "interpret" it. We can take certain verses in the Bible and rationalize any opinion or doctrine we desire. But its not not about what we desire, it is about what God says.

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Well-Known Member

Supporter

Your approach to biblical doctrine leaves too much room for making the scriptures say what you want them to say. If I base my faith on "my opinion" then by human nature I will be biased towards my own desires.

I agree with stilllearning, we need to just accept the Bible for what is says, and stop trying to "interpret" it. We can take certain verses in the Bible and rationalize any opinion or doctrine we desire. But its not not about what we desire, it is about what God says.

Just my opinion.....:saint:

AJ

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You misunderstand me.

I’ve found in the past that my understanding of certain doctrines were based more upon opinion and tradition than Scripture.

It’s easy to form an opinion about something; it’s harder to study out why we believe as we do and skim the dross.
Why even Jesus had to "interpret" what he said at times so his disciples could understand.
What makes you think we're any better?

The Bible can be misinterpreted.

Our claim of "Spirit’s leading" doesn’t insure our own correctness.

Too many people claim their own opinions are inerrant merely because they formed them by reading the Bible.

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Active Member

Thank you for your observation, when you said..........
“Don't you agree that we have a new heart once converted?”

Because the Bible does say........

Ezekiel 36:26
“A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh.”

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The reason I had overlooked this passage, is because when I would read Jeremiah 17:9, I have always, translated “heart” as “mind”(as it is), and then include our mind as part of our old sinful flesh.

But the word “heart” in Ezekiel 36:26, is the same GK. word as in Jeremiah 17:9;
Therefore in this verse in Ezekiel, the LORD does promise “to give us a new mind”.

And here is how He does it.........

Romans 12:2
“And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what [is] that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.”

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i.e. By exposing ourselves to the preaching and teaching of His Word!
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And then also we have..........

Hebrews 4:12
“For the word of God [is] quick, and powerful, and sharper than any twoedged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and [is] a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.”

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As we regularly study God’s Word, God will reveal to us when we are deceiving ourselves.
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P.S. Sorry for that crack about, “Some will go to the original Heb., and try to find a loophole”....(I was having a bad day.)
The “original language”, is really where we need to seek the truth.

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Member

Your approach to biblical doctrine leaves too much room for making the scriptures say what you want them to say. If I base my faith on "my opinion" then by human nature I will be biased towards my own desires.

I agree with stilllearning, we need to just accept the Bible for what is says, and stop trying to "interpret" it. We can take certain verses in the Bible and rationalize any opinion or doctrine we desire. But its not not about what we desire, it is about what God says.

Just my opinion.....:saint:

AJ

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If there is no need to interpret, why preach? Why not simply stand before the congregation and read Bible verses for 30-40 minutes? Just a thought.

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<img src =/Jim1999.jpg>

A simple rule of hermeneautics is, Where the Bible makes common sense, seek no other sense. There is a place for reading the Bible for what it is saying to you at the moment. These make for great devotions.

We cannot, however, ignore set rules for basic understanding of scripture in context. We are reading a book from another age, and what is said is addressing a specific people. We must learn what that meant to the hearers, and then apply to us in this century.

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Banned

If there is no need to interpret, why preach? Why not simply stand before the congregation and read Bible verses for 30-40 minutes? Just a thought.

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Application is the answer. Even when we take the Bible as literal, we still need to learn how to apply the teachings to our lives.....I am fortunate enough to have an expository preacher that does a good job of this. He shows us how to apply what the Bible says but he tries very hard to stick to exactly what it says.

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Active Member

“We are reading a book from another age, and what is said is addressing a specific people. We must learn what that meant to the hearers, and then apply to us in this century.”

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This would be true, if you were talking about some secular book(written by a man);
But we are talking about the Bible(penned by men but written by God)!

If anybody applies the rule you suggest, they could simply cast aside any part of the Bible they didn’t want to obey, and say “it was for them and not for me”.
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A good example of this is......

This is a fact: (That a man praying with long hair, dishonors Christ).
-Although I admit that it doesn’t say “how long” long is.-

But I have seen people throw this entire passage out the window, because someone had convinced them, that it was only written for those folks in Corinth.
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We need to give the Bible, the credit it deserves, as being a supernatural book.

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New Member

What further evidence do we need that the heart of man is above all things deceitful? :laugh:

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I still believe that the Bible is our most important treasure as believers....I just don't think the Holy Spirit speaks EXCLUSIVELY through the Bible.

For example, I didn't read from the Bible that God wants me to move to Brazil to serve a missionary's ministry full-time. It was through prayer, reflection, conversation, experience, advice, desire. The Bible can either confirm or contradict all of these things, but there is no verse that shows me to go to Brazil. It is primarily based off of the leading of the Spirit.

The Bible is what we use to measure what we sense from the Spirit, but that doesn't mean it is the only way we hear from the Spirit.

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